Taught by America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton

After graduating from Yale University, Sarah Sentilles joined the Teach for America program and began a two-year assignment as an elementary school teacher in Compton, California. Far from the hallowed halls of academe and the suburban streets where she grew up, in charge of thirty-six first graders in a classroom without books, Sentilles experienced her own kind of education. Taught by America is the story of the children Sentilles taught—but more than that, it’s a story of one woman’s change of heart and life.Through moving portraits of inspiring children, Sentilles takes the reader with her on her heartbreaking journey, as she learns about a failing school system, the true meaning of poverty in America, and the strength children exhibit even when they’re struggling to survive. Sentilles originally joined Teach for America as a break between undergraduate and graduate school. What she didn’t expect was that the children of Compton would change her utterly: instead of going on to grad